University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

6. Mrs A complains about the care and treatment the Trust gave to her husband in January and February 2021. She complains:

• the Trust put Mr A on the medical assessment unit despite instructions for him to isolate due to his low immune system • the Trust failed to give the correct medication and treatment for COVID-19, including ventilation • nobody told her Mr A was dying or what to expect and when she arrived at the hospital, staff explained Mr A’s condition in an insensitive and unprofessional way while in a public place. Mrs A told us a staff member said they would ‘shove a tube down’ Mr A’s throat if that is what the family wanted • the Trust stopped medication on 1 February 2021 without discussion with Mr A or his family • treatment for Mr A’s mouth ulcers was delayed • Mrs A’s daughter was not allowed to visit Mr A and the Trust threatened her daughter with arrest if she did not leave the hospital • nursing staff did not attend to Mr A after 1 February as they said they thought his family were caring for him • the Trust failed to respond to the complaint within normal timelines.

7. Mrs A said the failure of the Trust to provide medication and treatment led to Mr A having a stroke. She told us because of the Trust’s actions, Mr A died earlier than expected. She said his family lost time they could have spent with him and the events have been very distressing, causing massive impact to the family.

8. Mrs A wants answers to her questions. She also wants a financial payment.

9. The Trust admitted Mr A on 15 January. This was because he had dark stools (faeces), which was thought to be caused by a gastrointestinal bleed (bleed linked to the digestive system). The Trust were also concerned about his blood test results. Mr A’s COVID-19 test was negative.

10. On 17 January, the Trust transferred Mr A to a ward where the Trust planned to investigate his dark stools.

11. On 19 January Mr A’s COVID-19 test came back positive. He was later transferred to another ward and the Trust gave him oxygen.

12. Mr A’s condition deteriorated on 28 January, and the Trust moved him to a side room. The Trust decided to stop medication on 1 February. Mr A had a stroke shortly after this and sadly died two days later.

Clinical care and treatment

15. The law says we cannot investigate a complaint where a person has (or had) the option to take legal action, unless we consider this is (or was) unreasonable in the circumstances. We do not consider whether legal action would succeed but whether it would be a reasonable option to look in to.

16. Mrs A has several concerns about the Trust’s clinical care and treatment. She believes its failings led to Mr A having a stroke and dying sooner than he would have done.

17. Mrs A told us she wants a financial payment and answers to her questions. When we explored this with her, she told us she would like £10,000 or more.

18. Mrs A could take this case to court to achieve the outcomes she wants. We looked at whether it is reasonable for Mrs A to explore a legal route.

19. Mrs A explained she is being supported with her complaint by her eldest daughter. She did not raise any barriers to being able to take legal action.

20. While we appreciate Mrs A came to us first, the law is clear that we cannot investigate if there is a legal route available and it is reasonable for them to use it.

21. Mrs A can return to us if she is unable to take legal action, or if once it is complete, she has outstanding outcomes that the court could not deal with. We are sorry to hear about her difficult experience and hope she can achieve her outcomes through legal action.

Communication and complaint handling

22. Mrs A complains the Trust’s communication was poor and insensitive. She told us the Trust also delayed sending its complaint responses.

23. We take decisions on the use of our resources to allow us to investigate complaints which have significant impacts. We do not currently investigate complaints where the impact is less serious. This allows us to concentrate our resources on complaints that have a more serious impact and where we can make the most difference.

24. While we acknowledge the distress Mrs A experienced, we do not feel the impact of these issues alone (when separated from the other issues that we have advised Mrs A to take legal action on) are serious enough for us to investigate fully. We are sorry we are unable to consider these parts of the complaint.

Visiting restrictions

25. Mrs A said the Trust did not allow her daughter to see her father despite him being near death. This event has caused the family great distress and meant his daughter lost time she could have spent with Mr A.

26. The Trust has not commented on this in its complaint response. It was addressed in a recorded meeting between the family and the Trust.

27. We have reviewed the Trust’s visiting guidelines in place in February 2021. The guidelines say visitors were only allowed in exceptional circumstances. The death or near death of a patient counted as an exceptional circumstance.

28. The guidelines also suggest each patient was only allowed one authorised visitor. They say if social distancing could be kept to, then a maximum of two authorised visitors would be allowed. The guidelines clearly state the authorised visitor(s) must be the same throughout. The guidelines say this was to limit the number of people who accessed the ward.

29. We have listened to the recording of the meeting between Mr A’s family and the Trust. We heard Mrs A, her eldest daughter and son were allowed to visit. The family said Mrs A’s son was refused entry at first but was allowed in by a nurse. The family stated Mr A’s other daughter was refused entry. The family said the second daughter was told to leave otherwise security would be called. The family also said this was despite Mr A begging to see his daughter before he died.

30. The medical records first mention Mrs A and her eldest daughter visiting on 1 February. Both were with Mr A until his death. Their second daughter is mentioned as being outside the ward three days before Mr A died. There is no clear mention of Mr A’s son.

31. The visiting guidelines are clear and say a maximum of two visitors are allowed and it must be the same two each time.

32. We think it is likely the strict visiting restrictions meant the Trust did not allow the second daughter to visit. We have seen nothing to suggest this decision was against the guidelines. The guidelines were in place to maintain the safety of the hospital staff and other patients during the pandemic.

33. We appreciate how distressing this must have been for Mr A’s family and particularly for his daughter. Because we have seen no sign that anything has gone wrong here, we cannot take further action on this part of the complaint.

1. We have carefully considered Mrs A’s complaint about the care and treatment her husband, Mr A, had from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (the Trust). We are sorry to hear of the events Mrs A complains about and for the death of her husband.

2. We think Mrs A may be able to take legal action to resolve the medical parts of her complaint. We have discussed this with Mrs A and think it would be reasonable for her to look into this instead of us doing an investigation.

3. We cannot look into the issues Mrs A has with staff communication and complaint handling. This is because when separated from the main part of the complaint that we have advised Mrs A to look into legal action for, these issues have a lower impact and we are currently only investigating cases where the impact is more serious.

4. We think the Trust followed guidelines on restricted visiting in February 2021 and it did not do anything wrong. For this reason, we will not take further action on this part of the complaint.

5. We appreciate Mrs A may be disappointed by our decision. We have explained the reasons for it below.